Author Archives: Jeffrey Rissman

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Last week, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) released the first part of its fifth assessment report. This is a big event: IPCC reports are mammoth, multi-part documents that compile and summarize a vast range of widely-accepted scientific information on global climate change. A new report is produced roughly every six years (the previous […]

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A recent Bloomberg article by Christopher Martin points out that a majority of states that currently have Renewable Portfolio Standards (16 of 29 states) are considering legislation to weaken or repeal these standards. The efforts are being spearheaded by the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC), which believes that 2013 will “be the most active year […]

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Michael Liebreich, chief executive of Bloomberg New Energy Finance, recently wrote an article on the changing energy system and the future needs of energy businesses. Liebreich argues that the energy system is complex and interconnected, like an ecosystem, such that the value and promise of any one technology is dependent on many other technologies and […]

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Hal recently delivered a speech at the 2013 MIT-Stanford Game-Changers Workshop about the policies and practices that are needed for success in energy R&D. These include great national labs, collaboration between government and the private sector, a steady demand signal (no on-again, off-again policies), and a tolerance for failure. He also emphasized that technological innovation […]

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The Advanced Research Projects Agency-Energy (ARPA-E) held their annual Energy Innovation Summit from Feb. 25-27. The summit provides an opportunity for ARPA-E awardees, finalists, and other select energy companies to demonstrate their cutting-edge energy research and technologies. It also features speeches by technologists, financing experts, and politicians on the state of the energy sector. The […]

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Today, the American Energy Innovation Council (AEIC) released three case studies that illustrate the various ways in which the federal government has played a productive and necessary role in energy technology innovation. Staff research on unconventional gas exploration & production, advanced diesel internal combustion engines, and low-emissivity windows examine the mechanisms that the federal government […]

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The American Energy Innovation Council just released a new staff report, Unleashing Private-Sector Energy R&D: Insights from Interviews with 17 R&D Leaders, by Jeffrey Rissman and Maxine Savitz. The report investigates an issue that is central to technological progress in the energy sector: the role of private companies in researching and commercializing new technologies. Rissman […]

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We have just launched a new section of our website: Clean Energy Endeavors (CEE). CEE includes short profiles of 33 companies and projects across the U.S. in the clean energy and energy efficiency fields. While some of the energy security, economic, and environmental benefits of clean energy and efficiency are realized in the long term, […]

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Recently John Doerr (a member of the American Energy Innovation Council) and Ted Schlein, venture capitalists with Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers, wrote this article for Fortune magazine on federal support for research and entrepreneurship in the United States. They insist that we must not be “too timid to fail,” because boldness and some failures […]

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Neal F. Lane, the former director of the National Science Foundation and chief Science and Technology Advisor to President Bill Clinton, has written a sharp op-ed in the New York Times about government funding of scientific research. He makes two critical points: Scientific research and development is the key to economic growth (and employment). Robust […]